


Some Things Don't Fade Away

by QueSeraAwesome



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Family, Angelic Grace, Baby Angels, Castiel & Gabriel Are Brothers, Comment Fic, Fledglings, Gen, Other, Screwed up Heaven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 13:18:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1511927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueSeraAwesome/pseuds/QueSeraAwesome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a fledgeling angel's Grace begins to lose stabilization, it is commonly ostracized by its Brothers. It didn't always used to be that way. And Castiel wasn't the strongest of fledgelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Things Don't Fade Away

Castiel may be the angel of Thursday, but he is not the only one. Either Sachiel or Tzaphiel are just as responsible for watching over the day, and depending on the hour, there are seven other angels who hold responsibility. Anael used to hold sway over 6 a.m., 11 a.m. and 6 p.m., but when she Fell her hours fell to him. Angel of Thursday, he may be, but he is only one in a long line of redundancies, only one cog of the bureaucracy of heaven. He is not any more valuable than any other foot soldier in the army of Heaven. He is just another pawn, and no one cries for a pawn. He is still a young angel, when Anael falls. After, he doesn’t notice at first. It is harder to keep up with the others in his garrison, it is harder to hear their voices sometimes.

“Uriel,” he says after one battle with demons. “I cannot hear you.”

Uriel pulls his wings in, avoiding contact with Castiel’s, but does not respond.

“Uriel. Uriel, can you hear me? I—“

“Silence, Castiel,” Uriel says. “Go away.”

Castiel pauses, bewildered at the older angel’s reaction. Uriel has never treated him this way before. He feels his Grace flicker, and shivers in discomfort.

“Yes, Uriel,” he says. He flits to another corner of his Garrison’s residence in the fifth Circle of heaven, but everywhere he goes his fellow angels turn away. Finally he curls his wings around himself, huddling in the centermost pavilion. No angel has so much as looked at him all day. This is where his garrison leader, Albiel finds him.

“Castiel,” he says. “Fly with me.”

Castiel trails him eagerly, waiting to ask him to explain his garrison’s strange behavior. Albiel leads him to the outer corner of their circle and Castiel lands clumsily beside him, his grace flickering strangely again.

“You must remain here, Castiel,” Albiel says.

“Yes,” Castiel replies. “For how long?”

“We shall see,” Albiel responds. He makes to fly away.

“I do not understand,” Castiel says. “What are my orders?”

“Stay here,” Albiel repeats.

Castiel’s grace gives a great shudder and Castiel cries out in surprise.

“What is it that’s happening to my Grace?”

Albiel sighs. He does not turn to face Castiel, his wings like a shield between them.

“You are losing stabilization, Castiel. We were expecting this. Most of the others who came into Being around the same time as you have already Ceased.”

“Ceased?” Castiel asks. He has not heard the term before. “Am I falling? Like Anael?”

“You are not falling,” Albiel responds.

“You are losing stabilization. If your Grace does not regain its wavelength, you will Fade and cease to be. You must remain here until either you fade, or your grace restabilizes.”

“How do I—“

“Stay here, Castiel,” Albiel replies, taking flight before he can reply.

Castiel huddles, tucking his wings around him in the corner of the circle. The voices of his brothers are distant, their reverberations shielded from him.

He is utterly alone.

There is no time to be despondent, Castiel thinks. If he is to rejoin the others, he must achieve stabilization. He sets himself to his task. He can feel every irregularity in the wavelength of his grace. He tries to calm it, to sooth it back into its proper form but the irregularities spiral away from him, like mercury from his grasp. This is to Fade, to Cease, he thinks. This is what humans feel as they die. He does not wish to cease being—at least humans have the comfort of transferring their consciousness to Heaven. He will simply stop being. He wonders if it will hurt. His Grace jerks, spasming in reply. He curls his wings tighter around him, tries to think of something to comfort himself.

There was a fish, he remembers. A fish which crawled on land. He remembers admiring it, it’s bravery to leave its only home. He may have loved that fish, no matter how Uriel laughed at him when he spent centuries just watching its progress as it got less and less fish, as it learned.

Yes, he thinks. I am glad to have seen that. He closes his eyes, thinks of that little gray fish, and waits.

It is a long time before he realizes that he is still there, his grace a steady thrumming instead of the shivering of before. He stretches his wings, the brittleness gone. He feels as before— better than before, before Anael left. He turns back to the garrison, to see if any is watching, but their attention is all turned away from him. They have tuned him out. He tries to catch their attention, singing out his stabilization, but none answer. Castiel turns and flies back to the garrison, landing before Albiel. Albiel recoils in shock.

“I am stabilized,” Castiel announces. “Is my exile at an end, or should I return there?”

“How did you…I was certain you would…” Albiel trails off. Castiel can feel the attention of the whole garrison on him, curious pressure of their Grace investigating his own. “I did not,” he says. Albiel gives him a long once over, and nods.

“Return to your post, Castiel,” he says.

Castiel does. But the story of his success when all thought he would die spreads throughout Heaven. Before long he is promoted and above Uriel in the hierarchy, a fact he is certain Uriel will never forgive him for. But God has spared Castiel like he had not spared his broodmates. This is a fact which cannot be contested.

It is for this reason that he is sent into Hell to rescue Dean Winchester. If any can reach into Hell and retrieve the Righteous Man, it is he who has already survived the odds against him. Some of his garrison die in the attempt, but Castiel has Faith in one hand and his sword in the other, and demons fall before his Grace like trees before a hurricane. Castiel is not afraid. Castiel is not afraid until after the Apocalypse has truly started, and his Grace begins to slip from his grasp.

Gabriel finds him, after the adventure in the television, whisks him away mid-wing beat as he departs from the Winchesters, depositing him in on an abandoned park bench.

“You ought to be in Heaven,” he says, before Castiel can demand explanation. “Those two may not be willing to play their roles, but they’ll end up paying for it. No reason you should have to.”

“I am not afraid of the price,” Castiel replies. “I cannot believe this apocalypse is our Father’s will.”

“The only way this ends is in blood, boyo,” Gabriel says. “You’re not going to survive with your lightbulb burnt out, not with both sides gunning for you.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Castiel replies defensively.

“You’re losing your Grace,” Gabriel says. “You’re shedding like a dog in summer, kid. You can’t have not noticed.”

Castiel avoids Gabriel’s gaze, suddenly ashamed of his meager and fading Grace in the face of the archangel’s power and condescension.

“You’re falling, Castiel.”

“I will survive,” he replies. “I have survived worse fates.”

“What worse fates could you have possibly survived?” Gabriel asks, poking at him. “This is your first time taking a vessel, idn’t it? Probably haven met any demons capable of hurting you, and you weren’t even born during the Big Fight, what do you know of worse fates?”

“…I was a weak fledgling,” Castiel admits. “One of the last. Many in my brood and those after me simply Ceased to be.”

“What do you mean you nearly Ceased to be?” Gabriel asks.

“Where was your garrison?” “They ostracized me,” Castiel responds. “I was relegated to the edge of our Circle, where I very nearly became nothing. I was lucky not to be ejected from the garrison, but I was able to stabilize myself after a time and was allowed back into the fold.”

“That’s preposterous. They can’t have allowed that,” Gabriel says. “What of you Initiator? Your Mentors?”

“My what?”

“Don’t you know whose love you come from?” Gabriel asks incredulously.

Castiel frowns. He has never heard such language before, in all his millennia of existence. For all these terms have importance to Gabriel, he has no idea what he means.

“I come from the love of our Father,” he answers.

“No. I mean, yes, we all do, but—“ Gabriel stares at him, a realization of horror growing on his face. “You really don’t know.”

Castiel does not understand the emotion in the usually-guarded archangel’s eyes. He has always been bad at categorization of emotion, but the shades of sorrow and horror in Gabriel’s Grace are unmistakable. He just doesn’t know what they mean.

“I do not understand,” he says.

Gabriel growls in frustration, leaning his forehead in his hands.

“How can you not know? Has Heaven really fallen so far—“

“Very few angels have fallen since you left Heaven, Gabriel—”

“Not that kind of fall, idiot,” Gabriel snaps. “No, I mean. Have we forgotten so much? What’s even happening up there? Fledglings not knowing from whence they sprang, fledglings allowed to fade…”

“It was not always this way?”

“Of course not!” Gabriel roars, Grace leaking through his voice. “You weren’t there, you don’t remember. We were meant to be family, not soldiers, not cogs in a machine. _NO FLEDGLINGS FADED OUT OUT OF WANT, AND THEY CERTAINLY DID NOT FADE ALONE. S **UCH THINGS ARE UNFORGIVABLE**_ **.** ”

Castiel shrinks back before his wrath, wrapping his flickering wings around him for protection. Gabriel’s grace hangs in the air, palpable and wrathful as the smog he’s felt in overcrowded cities. Castiel cowers and understands how humans would have cowered when the being before him appeared to them; he understands that for all his truancy, Gabriel has not forgotten how to wield the Wrath of Heaven. Gabriel catches sight of him and calms, reigning in his grace until Castiel can breathe again.

“Forgive me,” Gabriel sighs. “It’s not you I’m angry with.”

Castiel nods, wonders if Heaven noticed the outpouring of Celestial anger. He wonders if he should flee, now, before Raphael or Zachariah find him.

“Come here,” Gabriel says, patting the bench. Castiel sits down beside him, reluctantly, gathering his wings around him in case he requires a quick escape.

“You don’t have to do that. I’m not going to smite you.”

“Zachariah has been searching for me. If he picks up on your Grace—“

“I been covering my tracks a lot longer than you, and burning a lot more fuel than you have. Relax.”

Castiel allows his wings to relax slightly. For now, Gabriel seems unwilling to do him serious harm.

“Look, see….”

Castiel waits patiently, hands folded in his lap while the archangel searches for words.

“Where do you think little angels come from?” Gabriel finally asks.

Castiel stares.

“…this is not unlike a talk Dean tried to have with me regarding protection before we visited the den of iniquity.”

“Wow. No. I have got to hear that story later. But, no, stay focused. Where do angels come from, Castiel? What were you told?”

“Angels manifest as a result of the divine will of our Father,” Castiel recites. “They are born to a purpose of celestial intent.” He pauses as Gabriel sighs. “Is this not correct?”

“Yes. Sort of,” Gariel hedges.

He seems like he wants to go on, but no clarification is immediately forthcoming. Castiel waits.

“Oh for Dad’s sake, would you blink every once in a while?” Gabriel snaps.

He runs his fingers through his hair. Castiel blinks obligingly. It would be foolish to disobey the order of an archangel (more than he already has).

“Angels to put it quite simply, are created of love,” Gabriel says, finally. “Michael, Lucifer, Raphael and me, we were the first. Created by Dad’s love. We’re the only ones created directly by Dad, but all of us, all of our family, are born of love.”

This is like nothing Castiel has ever heard. For one, he has never heard any in heaven in memory refer to all the spheres of heaven as a family, despite how they call each other brother. He is one of the few who takes the time to mourn when coming upon a fallen brother or sister. Many would not bother, opting to stay focused on their tasks.

“….I do not understand,” he says.

“Look, to put it simply, when an angel— or two angels, or a bunch of angels— love something very, very much, love something with their whole Grace, sometimes all that love takes its own shape and creates a new angel.”

“You are saying angels reproduce?”

“Kind of. Most of the first new angels were created of love for our Father,” Gabriel continues. “I think Michael Initiated a whole garrison like that. But it can really be love of anything. Love of music. Love of this new world, as it was created. I think Vretil even Initiated a new angel for love of the dinosaurs, but not in a pre-historical bestiality way. You can imagine how he was crushed when the comet hit. Couldn’t be helped. The new angel survived, though, can’t remember her name. “Sometimes a couple angels would work together to create a new angel. Garrisons would come together in love of their companionship to add to their number. Elimiel was Initiated over two angels mutual love of the moon. And even more rarely, angels would Initiate out of mutual love of each other. Puruel and Nurial got kinda known for that. Kinky bastards. I wonder what ever happened to them.”

“…am I to understand that angels can have sexual relations with each other, without benefit of vessels?” Cas asks.

“What? No! It’s not like that. It’s…” Gabriel pauses, searching for words. “It’s not like sex, and I know, I’ve had a lot of sex. It’s…”

Gabriel sighs and runs his hands through his hair again.

“It’s hard. But also effortless. It takes a lot. A lot of love. It’s easier with help, but you have to be in sync with each other, on the same wavelength. That’s why I can’t believe Heaven just lets fledglings Fade, when they’re still stabilizing. I can remember the first time we lost a fledgling like that, to destabilization. Sachiel’s garrison tried so hard to save him, but his wavelength scattered. You could hear the crying all over Heaven,” Gabriel says, trailing off.

“…Did you ever….initiate….angels?” Castiel asks cautiously.

Gabriel’s lips quirk in a pained smile.

“Too many to count, kid, too many to count. Archangel’s had a lot to love back then.”

“Do you consider these angels…you children? Or your brothers?”

“Oh, that’s a tough one, kid,” Gabriel says. “It’s hard to explain outside the system, and from what you’ve told me, it’s long broken down. You should have known who your Initator was, the angels whose love brought you into form. You should have had Mentors, angels chosen to guide you in your purpose. I’m sorry, kid.”

Castiel looks up at the sky. He knows up is not the direction in which Heaven lies, but the human thought has rubbed off on him, in this form. Gabriel sighs, digs a packet of M&Ms out of his pocket and begins eating. He offers Castiel the bag, but he shakes his head.

“You are certain I am falling?” Castiel asks. “Not, destabilizing?”

“You’re not Fading, Castiel,” Gabriel says. “You’re too old for it now. You won’t Cease to be when your Grace is gone. You’ll just be…different.”

“You mean human,” Castiel says.

“Yeah,” Gabriel says. “Human.” Gabriel sighs, snaps away the now empty candy wrapper. He gets to his feet, hands in his pockets and turns to Castiel.

“I can’t fix this,” Gabriel says. “I was never suited to healing, just bringing bad news….maybe Raphael…but if Raphael’s letting fledglings Fade, I doubt he cares much anymore.”

“He does not,” Castiel says. Gabriel raises an eyebrow at him. “We have met. He killed me. And then I trapped him in holy oil.”

Gabriel laughs.

“You didn’t.”

“I also may have called him, ‘my little bitch,’ while so trapped.”

Gabriel laughs hard at that, wiping tears from his eyes.

“Yeah, no, he won’t help you. He never could stand a stab at his ego,” Gabriel’s laughter dies. “I used to tease him that he could Initiate a whole garrison with just a glance of his reflection in the mirror.”

Castiel chuckles quietly. Gabriel shoots him a crooked smile, which fades into a sympathetic frown.

“I can’t stop it,” Gabriel says, his Grace soothing Castiel’s aching wings. “You’re falling, and only Heaven can fix that. Go home, Cas.”

“I cannot,” Castiel says. “It is too late for that, brother. I am certain that if I did I would be killed on the spot. And besides,” Castiel pauses, finding the shape of the words he needs, “Besides…from all that I have learned from you today, I doubt that it would truly by a home to which I would wish to return.”

Gabriel gives him a hard, searching look, like he’s looking inside him, searching his Grace for answers. Or perhaps seeing the beginnings of a human soul which will take its place.

“It hasn’t been home for either of us in a long time, has it?” Gabriel asks.

Before Castiel can answer, he is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally for a prompt on comment_fic about angels ostracizing a weak fledgeling or something but I CAN'T FIND IT NOW *sob*. And then I angel Headcannoned and brotp'd all over it.
> 
> I've got a tumblr! QueSeraAwesome.tumblr.com. Not any supernatural stuff up there right now, but I make no promises for the future.


End file.
